Braves Are 13th Most Valuable Franchise In Baseball

Operating profit doesn’t mean straight up profit, which in turn does not equal actual cash. Accounting in a fickle bitch

It doesnt seem like much for such a big company. I would imagine, especially during the Great Recession, that such numbers can fluctuate by that much each year. Liberty is a company — the last thing they want to do is run a deficit. If they put just 10 million each year back in that leaves them a very small margin between deficit and profit.

So, here’s the skinny:

Revenues would be all incoming money, whether that be from investments, concessions, sponsorships, ticket sales, etc.

Operating Revenues would be all incoming money as a result of doing business. For the Braves, this would mean ticket sales, concession sales (to the extent that’s owned by LM, I’m not sure), gift shop sales (same as concessions), etc. but would not include sponsorships and investments. Apparently sponsorships and the like make up a huge portion of the Braves income.

Of course, this is all revenue, not profit. Profit is revenue – expenses. So take that total revenue number, subtract our payroll, subtract operating expenses for the Ted, subtract what we pay staff and management, travel, equipment for the team, etc., etc. and you’ll have the profits for the team.

This doesn’t say anything about how much money LM is actually pocketing, only that the $22.2M figure isn’t it.

not operating revenue. See my second post above for a definition of operating revenues.

And we’re just a part of their much larger portfolio. It’s unreasonable to expect them to operate this part of their business differently than they operate the other parts. I’m fine with them making a profit as long as the team is given a good chance to succeed and they aren’t gouging the fans at the ballpark. Since the team is in great shape and the ticket prices are very reasonable, I don’t think we have any reason to complain whatsoever.

Liberty is not the ideal owner, to be sure, but they’ve been very good to us, by the standards of corporate america anyway.

In any business enterprise, the object is to make money. That’s how we can buy cars, bass boats, and ipods. For cryin’ out loud — this isn’t that much in the overall scheme of things …. and that $22.2 million figure is most likely (in addition to everything already mentioned above) pre-taxed.

Consider these points:
> Are these guys making money and pocketing it like the Marlins or Pirates? No.
> Are these guys consistently making that $22.2m figure? No – check the charts… plus this figure is a projection for 2011.
> Is this money going to a single mogul? No - it’s going to stockholders who buy stock in the expectation of a profit. OR people who invest in 401K’s. Do they deserve a little profit?
> Have they put the money and team in place to build a great organization? YES.

Let’s lighten up, people: this is effectively nothing. Heck, why bang on the owners for making a buck? Maybe the players themselves oughta be playing for free???

1. What is profit? The reward for putting money at risk. And when you put half a billion dollars at risk, you oughta have the expectation of a reasonably sizable profit, thankyouverymuch.

2. Don’t expect a new owner to throw money at the team. Nobody accumulates the $500 million (+/-) that it will take to buy this team without being business savvy. It the TOTAL profit available is around $20m or less, then that’s the limit. Nobody is going to throw bucks in that don’t exist.

My prediction: we might one day wish to have Liberty Media back.

the 22.2mm is operating income, not revenue. thus it is equivalent to EBIT, and most of that is pocketed by Liberty Media unless they’re donating bucketloads to UNICEF

They most certainly pay to rent it, I doubt there’s a single major league team who doesn’t either lease/pay mortgage on their stadiums

I think it’s pretty cool that it’s not only not a problem for us, but that there’s no chance it’ll crop up in the near future.